Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • 135

Long Path Led Back To Acting In Series By DICK KLEINER Seven or eight years ago, Tom Simcox was one of the bright young stars of Hollywood. You practically couldn't turn on the set without seeing him, as a guest star of one TV show or another. Then he abruptly left the Hollywood scene. And he couldn't have picked a spot further removed -he went to India, where, for several months, he sat on a mountain top and studied transcendental meditation with a maharishi, his personal guru. "When I arrived in New Delhi," he says, "I thought it would be hard to find a maharishi to study with but there are thousands of them.

I just asked the desk clerk in the hotel." When he came back down from the mountain, he still wasn't ready to go back to acting. For the next year or so, he was off in Mexico, meditating and trying his hand at writing. He wrote a book about his experiences in India, but never showed it to a publisher. For a while, after his return from Mexico, he taught classes in transcendental meditation TM but eventually decided that was not for him. "I still meditate," he says, "and I find it a beneficial experience, but I won't teach it any After all those years of trying to find himself, trying to discover where he belongs, he's back where he started.

"I have decided," he says, "that I really love acting, and that this is where I belong. I. think I'm back in acting to stay." He dipped his foot in the acting pool by appearing in a few "Police Story" episodes, a "Biggsville" and a Disney TV film, "Weak Foot." And now he's one of the stars of CBS' new series, "Code He plays the police chief on the fictional island which is the center of the action on the show. IT 7-TV Oakland Tom Simcox of 'Code R' went to India to study Tribune' meditation, but ended Feb. up back in Hollywood L261 CLARKS SAN ANSELMO, 610 Sir Francis Drake Blvd.

456-2451 SAN FRANCISCO, 1411 Clement (at 15th Ave) 668-8870 OAKLAND, 37 Grand (Bet. Bdwy. Webster) 834-5299 TWIN SIZE 69.95 3 Drawers Low Profile Styling MATTRESS EXTRA COUCH HEIGHT MAHOGANY READY TO FINISH Tom Simcox has decided he really loves acting after all, and enjoys his role in new 'Code R' series The island is a small place, a slow-moving place, and it reminds Tom Simcox of his own home town, Medford, N.J. "The town I grew up in," he says, "is something like the island in Code R. It's a place where everybody knows everybody else, where if you double park your car, you don't get a ticket instead, the policeman comes and gets you and asks you to move the car." "Code is in the family-hour time period, and thus its action-adventure heroics will be tempered with good taste.

"We're a family show," Simcox says. "'We don't go in for a lot of crime. If there are bad guys, we don't shoot them we maybe drag out a firehose and water them Simcox believes there is a definite need for a show like "Code action-adventure but without violence and, hence, he is optimistic about its chances. "Of course," he says, "we're evolving as we go along. Every show that has a late start, such as ours, goes through the same evolutionary process.

We're still not sure about relationships, for example. They tell me my character has a wife, but she hasn't shown up yet. I do have a son, however, and that seems to be building Tom Simcox's interest in things like Indian religions comes naturally, since his mother was a minister. She established a church for her sect Assembly of God in his home town. "The church was against drinking," he says, "and that alienated a lot of people in the town.

Even my father liked to take a little nip now and Tom's sister, who lives in Florida, is also a minister. As for Tom, he is now down from his Indian mountain and once again an actor. Enterprise Features CUSTOM MADE VINYL or PLASTIC Furniture Covers Fitted in your home. 24-hr. phone service NOW! Expert Furniture Cleaning PLASTIC QUEEN 638-5411 1615 BROADWAY, OAKLAND BankAmericard Master Charge A PACK PETER MARSHALL PUNSTERSI Laugh along with regular panelists George Gobel and Paul Lynde, joined by seven other all-star mirth makers.

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